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Advertising for KDP Books

Running ads for your KDP books can help you reach new customers. With Amazon Advertising, you can create custom ads for readers likely to be interested in books like yours. You set the budget you want to spend and the maximum amount you're willing to pay when a customer clicks your ad. You're only charged when your ad is clicked.

Check eligibility requirements

Currently, you can only run ads on Amazon.com. You can advertise books written in languages other than English, but all language in the ad must match the language of the Amazon site where the ad's running. For example, if you want to advertise a book written in Japanese on Amazon.com, the ad must be in English. Also, book titles must clearly state if the book isn't in the language of the Amazon site where the ad's running.

Get your detail page ready

Customers who click your ad will be taken to your book's product detail page, and a strong detail page can help convert the click into a sale. Make sure your detail page has:

Create an Amazon Advertising account

Under "Run an Ad Campaign," click Create an Ad Campaign. If you haven't set up an Amazon Advertising account, this will create your account and sign you in.

Choose an ad type

You have two options for advertising your KDP books: Sponsored Products and Lockscreen Ads. You can create Sponsored Products for your eBooks and paperbacks. Only eBooks are supported for Lockscreen Ads.

Sponsored Products (eBook and paperback) promote individual titles to readers as they search for books. Sponsored Products are targeted by keywords or products. They appear within search results and on product detail pages across desktop and mobile. With a simple campaign creation process, Sponsored Products is the recommended way to get started advertising.

Lockscreen Ads (eBook only) are pay-per-click, interest-targeted display ads that appear on Kindle E-reader and Fire tablet lockscreens and Kindle E-reader home screens. Lockscreen Ads reach customers on their devices, where they are reading and making eBook-purchasing decisions. Ads are targeted by genre interests.

Create your ad

Enter your campaign name. We recommend choosing a unique name and keeping the default time and date stamp. This way you can easily identify different campaigns. Once you submit your ad, you won't be able to change the campaign name.

Set the duration. You can run your campaign without an end date or set a specific date range. We recommend running campaigns for a minimum of two weeks to make sure they get traction.

Set your daily budget. The minimum daily budget is $1, and you'll only be charged when a customer clicks your ad. The daily budget is an average over the duration of your campaign. That means some days may exceed your daily budget, while other days won't. At the end of the campaign, the average daily spend won't exceed your daily budget.

Choose a targeting type. You have two options:

Automatic. Amazon targets keywords and products that are similar to your book. This is a great place to start if you don't know which targeting type to use.

Manual. There are two options:

Product. Target by product or category to reach readers as they browse detail pages and filter search results for products similar to yours. Further refine your targeting by specific brands, star reviews, and price. See this guide to learn more about product targeting.

Keyword. Add your own keywords based on your book's content, genre, and similar authors. You can also use suggested keywords from the ad builder. We recommend a minimum of 100 keywords for each campaign. Check out our keyword strategy guide to get started building your keyword list.

Choose an ad format. You have two options:

Custom. Include your own ad copy with Custom Ads to provide readers with context for your book.

Standard. Choose to launch a campaign quickly without custom text by using Standard Ads.

Choose your book. If you started from your KDP Bookshelf, the book is automatically selected. If you choose the book, make sure it's the format (eBook or paperback) you want to advertise.

Set your bid. You decide how much you want to spend. Enable the Bid+ feature to increase the opportunity for your ad to show in the top of search results. When Bid+ is turned on, Amazon will increase the bids for your eligible ads by up to 50%. When setting up manually targeted campaigns, apply suggested bids to help increase your chances of winning the auction.

Enter your campaign name. We recommend choosing a unique name and keeping the default time and date stamp to be able to easily identify your different campaigns. Once you submit your ad, you won't be able to change the campaign name.

Enter your cost-per-click bid. This is the maximum you're willing to pay each time a customer clicks your ad. We'll never charge you more than your maximum bid.

Set your campaign budget. Your budget is the maximum amount you're willing to spend for the entire ad campaign. Lockscreen Ads require a minimum total budget of $100, but you're only charged when a customer clicks your ad.

Set the duration. Enter a start and end date for your campaign. We recommend a minimum of 4 weeks to make sure your ads get traction.

Decide how you want to pace your campaign. You have two options:

Quickly. Deliver ad impressions as quickly as possible to the first customers who might be interested.

Evenly. Spread delivery evenly over the duration of the campaign.

Customize your ad

You need to add customized text to your ad, which can help entice readers. Make sure the text is:

Relevant to your book

Spelled correctly

Free of grammatical errors

Note: The language of the ad must match the language of the Amazon site. For example, if you're running an ad for a book written in Japanese on Amazon.com, the ad must be in English. For details on requirements, see our policies and guidelines.

Preview your ad

You can preview your ads during campaign setup. Previews show what ads looks like with custom text, but they may not exactly represent all the elements in live ads.

Your ad will contain your book cover image, book title, author name, current star rating (if you've received at least 15 reviews and they average 3.5 stars or higher) and, in some placements, the list price. With some placements, the ad will update the star rating and list price daily to correspond with your current Amazon.com detail page.

Submit your campaign for review

We review ads within 72 hours after submission to ensure they meet our requirements. Here are the three most common reasons we reject ads:

The survey is hosted by Qualtrics, so you'll visit their site to fill it out.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost?

Sponsored Products (eBook and paperback)

Lockscreen Ads (eBook only)

You control your spend by setting your bids and daily budget

You're only charged when customers click on your ad

Minimum average daily budget of $1

You control your spend by setting your bids and total campaign budget

You're only charged when customers click on your ad

Minimum total campaign budget of $100

What happened to Product Display Ads?

To simplify our suite of advertising products for authors, we're retiring Product Display Ads on January 27, 2019. You can still access your Product Display Ad data from the Product Display Ads campaigns tab. You can use Sponsored Products and Lockscreen Ads to keep targeting by product and interest. See this guide to learn more about updates to ad types.

If your campaign was already live as of December 12, 2018, it will continue to run until Product Display Ads are retired on January 27, 2019. You can continue to edit your campaigns until this date. On January 27, any Product Display Ads still running will be archived. You may copy Product Display Ads that are currently running or in draft form to Lockscreen Ads or Sponsored Products. You can also copy archived campaigns. Go to the Product Display Ads campaigns tab to get started. See this guide to learn more about updates to ad types.

How do I use the interactive performance dashboard?

Video: Interactive performance dashboard

How do I access my Amazon Advertising dashboard from KDP?

Video: Accessing your campaign dashboard from KDP

What are Lockscreen Ads? How do they work?

Lockscreen Ads are pay-per-click, interest-targeted display ads that appear on Kindle E-reader and Fire Tablet lockscreens and home screens. Lockscreen Ads reach customers on their devices, where they are reading and making eBook-purchasing decisions. Ads are targeted by genre interests. See this guide to learn more about Lockscreen Ads.

Have my ads converted to sales?

For ads to be credited with a sale on the campaign manager, a customer must click an ad and buy the book within 14 days of clicking. Your KDP sales reports show only the final sales numbers and royalties you earned from books published in your KDP account.

How do I restart my ad after having a billing issue?

If your ad was stopped due to a billing issue, it will restart automatically once you update your credit card details. If your campaign is already past the end date you set and you've updated your credit card, you can submit a new ad.

I noticed my campaign was paused and that I have a billing error.

Ads can be paused if your bank declines your credit card. A charge can fail for a variety of reasons, many of which may not be related to the validity of the credit/debit card or available balance. A few steps you can take:

Verify that the payment information for the ad is correct (expiration date, etc.).

Make sure the billing address and phone number in your Amazon Advertising account match those associated with your credit card.

Contact your bank to ask about their restrictions regarding electronic or Internet purchases, or if the card has been updated recently.

Update your payment method. Go to your Amazon Advertising account and check the paused ad. You'll see an alert about the billing error, and you can change or update your payment details

Your ad will restart automatically once your credit card details are processed and verified. This can take up to 72 hours. If your campaign is already past the end date you set and you've updated your credit card, you can submit a new ad.

How do I troubleshoot ad performance?

If your ads aren't performing the way you expected, there are a few things to check to make sure your ads have the best chance possible of succeeding:

Campaign budget pacing. If "spread campaign evenly over its duration" is selected or if the system predicts that the budget will run out by the end of the campaign (based on the predicted amount of clicks and cost-per-click), the budget will be spread evenly, but performance may be sporadic. This means the ad may not show to everyone who's viewing relevant pages, because the campaign must continue serving ads until the last day.

Relevance. The less relevant or related your book is to your targeting, the less likely it is your ad will perform. Make sure your targeting is relevant to your title, because once the auction market has enough competition, better-performing ads will push out less relevant ones. The more customers click on an ad, the more relevant it becomes.

Targeting. Choosing too few keywords, products, or interests may limit the reach of the campaign to a smaller audience. You can add up to 1,000 keywords or products and as many interests as you want. We recommend targeting at least 100 keywords to get started.

Duration. If you choose a duration that's too short, the campaign may not run to full potential. We recommend setting Sponsored Products campaigns to run for a minimum of two weeks and Product Display ad campaign for a minimum of four weeks. You can run your campaign with no end date and terminate or pause it at any time. Keep in mind that ads may still run for 24 hours after you have terminated or paused them and you may continue to accrue impressions, clicks, charges, and sales for 14 days). Remember to match your duration with a healthy budget. Too small of a budget may impact the ad campaign performance.

Bids. If you set a cost-per-click bid lower than other live ads, your ad may not be shown. Consider increasing your bid to the maximum amount you are willing to pay when a customer clicks your ad. To get started, look for the suggested bid range in the campaign builder. You'll only be charged when a customer clicks your ad.

Can I edit my campaign while it's running?

As long as your ad is running, you can edit the budget, bids, and the duration (the end date for a running campaign can be edited to shorten or extend a campaign). To edit your end date from the campaign manager, you can edit the end date field by clicking on it. You can also select multiple campaigns and click Adjust end date to bulk edit. Finally, you can click the campaign then go to the Campaign settings tab to adjust the scheduled end date. Your new campaign settings will update immediately. However, ad data such as clicks, impressions, and sales may take up to 14 days to show in your reports.

Where can I see my ad's status?

Sign in to your Amazon Advertising account. Hover over Advertising on the page header, click Campaign Manager, and go to the Campaigns tab.

Where on Amazon can I see my ad?

There's no guaranteed way to see where your ad displays. Ads are displayed based on the keywords, categories, or products targeted. With so many users and so many ads in the system at once, your ad could be displayed in multiple places. You can track your ad's performance by signing in to your Amazon Advertising account. You'll see the number of impressions, clicks, and estimated total sales resulting from your ads. If impression data is increasing, then your ad is being seen.

How often is campaign data updated?

The data in the campaign manager is updated every hour, with data no older than 12 hours.

Where can I see my ad campaign data?

To see how your Sponsored Products and Lockscreen aAds are performing, go to the campaign manager. It can help you quickly analyze and refine your campaigns. You can choose from several metrics to display the relative performance of a campaign, keyword, or indicators like impressions, clicks, and sales. Learn more.

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